An excellent article on materialism!
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Wrath of the Swarm
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What's lacking - a definition of 'physical' or 'material' is more important.
What properties does a physical thing have that makes it different from a nonphysical thing?
What properties does a physical thing have that makes it different from a nonphysical thing?
Paul C. Anagnostopoulos
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His straightforward definition is fine, except for what Wrath just mentioned, of course. It's all the other baggage that comes along for the ride. For example, where does the whole denying private experiences thing come from? Where does the claim that everything has to be explainable from a third-person perspective crop up? How come you equate scientific materialism with philosophical materialism?
You're adding all the extra crapola in an attempt to distinguish idealism from materialism, so that you don't have to admit that a monism is a monism. Or, just possibly, all that baggage really is part of philosophers' definition of materialism, and those definitions are all whitewashed.
~~ Paul
Stimpson J. Cat
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Ian,
I don't recall anybody ever asking for your permission to call their position materialism. If you don't like it, tough crap. You deal with it, Ian.
No, you are mistaking what modern materialists call materialism for metaphysical materialism. Why can't you simply acknowledge that the position you are calling materialism was abandoned almost a century ago as being untenable? Why should modern people with a scientific worldview not be allowed to use that term to refer to it? What difference does it make to you what those people call their position? Why do you even care?
By the way, we use the term "materialism" not because we believe that everything is made up of some metaphysical substance called matter, but simply because we believe that every observable feature of reality can be described in terms of material (physical) processes and interactions. As I have told you many times, it is an epistemological position, not a metaphysical one.
Again, if you think it is inappropriate to use the term "materialism" to refer to such a position, simply because it used to be used to refer to a different one, tough crap. Nobody asked for your permission, and nobody cares whether you like it or not.
I am not a philosopher? I am puzzled as to what you think qualifies somebody to be called that. I have a philosophy. I have studied philosophy. I have a doctorate in natural philosophy. What are you qualifications, Ian?
I don't. I use it in the same way that most, if not all, people who actually call themselves materialists use it. We cannot help it that many other philosophers (who are not materialists), choose to misrepresent it either as the old metaphysical materialism that nobody follows anymore, or as some incoherent hybrid between that and what it really is.
I don't go around telling you what "idealism" really means, do I?
As I said, that topic cannot be reasonably discussed until it is actually established what the position of materialism is.
Modern materialists do exactly that. I have explained it to you many times myself. You just choose to ignore my explanations, since they are inconsistent with your metaphysical preconception of what materialism is.
But not at all surprising.
I am sure there are many people who could do a far better job than I.
Dr. Stupid
I don't recall anybody ever asking for your permission to call their position materialism. If you don't like it, tough crap. You deal with it, Ian.
No, you are mistaking what modern materialists call materialism for metaphysical materialism. Why can't you simply acknowledge that the position you are calling materialism was abandoned almost a century ago as being untenable? Why should modern people with a scientific worldview not be allowed to use that term to refer to it? What difference does it make to you what those people call their position? Why do you even care?
By the way, we use the term "materialism" not because we believe that everything is made up of some metaphysical substance called matter, but simply because we believe that every observable feature of reality can be described in terms of material (physical) processes and interactions. As I have told you many times, it is an epistemological position, not a metaphysical one.
Again, if you think it is inappropriate to use the term "materialism" to refer to such a position, simply because it used to be used to refer to a different one, tough crap. Nobody asked for your permission, and nobody cares whether you like it or not.
I am not a philosopher? I am puzzled as to what you think qualifies somebody to be called that. I have a philosophy. I have studied philosophy. I have a doctorate in natural philosophy. What are you qualifications, Ian?
I don't. I use it in the same way that most, if not all, people who actually call themselves materialists use it. We cannot help it that many other philosophers (who are not materialists), choose to misrepresent it either as the old metaphysical materialism that nobody follows anymore, or as some incoherent hybrid between that and what it really is.
I don't go around telling you what "idealism" really means, do I?
As I said, that topic cannot be reasonably discussed until it is actually established what the position of materialism is.
Modern materialists do exactly that. I have explained it to you many times myself. You just choose to ignore my explanations, since they are inconsistent with your metaphysical preconception of what materialism is.
But not at all surprising.
I am sure there are many people who could do a far better job than I.
Dr. Stupid
Interesting Ian
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Stimpson J. Cat said:
I've told you many times what f*cking materialism means. If you can't f*cking understand I can't f*cking help that./ But don't give me your mindless f*cking sh!t about materialism not being metaphysical. I'm not interested in your f*cking crass stupiditya and ignorance. Get it???
Science has f*ck all to do with materialism, that's why.
Material or physical processes has no f*cking meaning.
Naturalism does not equate to materialism, retard.
Do what??
Yeah, millions. The guy who wrote the article being one of them.
Interesting Ian
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Paul C. Anagnostopoulos said:
Tell me how materialists can explain private experiences. How can subjective experiences be material things or processes??
Part of the definition of materialism. It only deals with existents which can be objectively detected.
I have no idea what "scientific materialism" means. The acquisition of material goods perhaps?
Idealism and materialism have nothing in common whatsoever. The one asserts that only selves and their experiences exist, the other asserts only the material exists.
!Xx+-Rational-+xX!
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Materialists are sciences messenger!
1. Science is the only reliable method!
2. The scientific community has always held the materialist position!
3. So it would be absurd to venture away from the established materialist tradition in science!
1. Science is the only reliable method!
2. The scientific community has always held the materialist position!
3. So it would be absurd to venture away from the established materialist tradition in science!
I found the whole article very interested in attacking materialism instead of just describing the philosophy.
His understanding of materialist positions seems weak, especially in "eliminative materialism".
I will just comment this point (although I found all of them objectionable):
False. It does not follow. Under materialism, "numbers, universals, properties, sets or propositions" refers to information. It doesn't matter if the information can be found universally, if it is reducible or not, etc...It will always be information present in a physical media. A materialist usually sustains the hypothesis that this kind of information is encoded in the brain of everyone knowing those concepts. Furthermore, science can show clear relations between some of the concepts and specific brain areas (language, for example).
Of course, the author is much more interested in showing "weak points" in materialism than in understanding it. The bias is quite visible.
His understanding of materialist positions seems weak, especially in "eliminative materialism".
I will just comment this point (although I found all of them objectionable):
False. It does not follow. Under materialism, "numbers, universals, properties, sets or propositions" refers to information. It doesn't matter if the information can be found universally, if it is reducible or not, etc...It will always be information present in a physical media. A materialist usually sustains the hypothesis that this kind of information is encoded in the brain of everyone knowing those concepts. Furthermore, science can show clear relations between some of the concepts and specific brain areas (language, for example).
Of course, the author is much more interested in showing "weak points" in materialism than in understanding it. The bias is quite visible.
Interesting Ian
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Peskanov said:
Right! The Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy has got it wrong. They have got the word "materialism" wrong, one of the most common philosophical terms! Are you guys serious??
Huh? What??
What???
A number is information????
!! How can a number, all by itself be information???Dearie me!
You lot really are ABSOLUTELY clueless aren't you??
I think I might just give up on this board.
Paul C. Anagnostopoulos
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Why can't they be brain processes, just like the weather is an atmospheric process?
Not according to all those definitions I read.
See Stimpy's crass, mindless, meaningless, stupid, ignorant, retarded post above.
Yet in spite of having nothing in common whatsoever, you can't propose an experiment to illustrate the difference. How sneaky are those monisms.
~~ Paul
Paul C. Anagnostopoulos
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Why don't you find a free-floating number and ask it? They all left my office last week.
~~ Paul
Good question. Does the weather think too?Paul C. Anagnostopoulos said:
And replying yet again to this repetitive question of yours, nope, epistemologically, they cannot be differentiated. The differentiation is a process of logic. Two points to examine are the non-life / life division at the lower end of the scale, and HPC/qualia at the human thought level. Epistemologic answers to questions of ethics and morals should also be of interest in our personal analyses.
Of course, since all of you now appear to be undefined non-immaterialists (that seems more politic than 'confused'
) the question is reaching the stage of mootness.Paul C. Anagnostopoulos
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I don't know, but what does that have to do with the question of whether consciousness is a brain process? Or, if thinking is the issue, whether thinking is a brain process?
So if they cannot be differentiated epistemologically, that means that we will eventually be able to show that the mind is brain function. Or are you saying they cannot be differentiated just now?
I'm pondering the logic of idealism. So far, nothing on life/nonlife. Nothing on qualia. Most certainly nothing on morals. Can you elaborate?
~~ Paul
Wrath of the Swarm
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The behavior of water molecules in the ocean is orders of magnitude more complex than the behaviors of the molecules within a human brain. Asking "does it think" is asking the wrong question.
What is the computational power of the universe?
What is the computational power of the universe?
Ian,
What a silly appeal to authority...Other encyclopedias are not so biased against materialism, but I guess you don't like them so much.
Here you have a much more sensible description of eliminativism:
http://www.artsci.wustl.edu/~philos/MindDict/eliminativism.html
Your wonderfull article (and I don't care if it comes from encyclopedia X) just builds a silly missrepresentation. It says:
This is silly, silly, silly. Eliminativism negates the existence of "mental states" in the sense that they consider the term to be too simple and superficial and that the reality behind it it's probably much more complex. They acknowledge the phenomena but reject the description. Got it?
A "number by itself" does not exist under materialism.
And the concept of number never was universal, btw; the concept of zero is very recent.
There is a tribe in Africa which can't count after number six. After six, all they have is "a lot".
Not all mathematics agree over how to operate with "infinities".
Some persons reject the validity of numbers and only accept the concept of "sets". Etc, etc...
The concept of numbers is just a very useful information travelling from mind to mind...
What a silly appeal to authority...Other encyclopedias are not so biased against materialism, but I guess you don't like them so much.
Here you have a much more sensible description of eliminativism:
http://www.artsci.wustl.edu/~philos/MindDict/eliminativism.html
Your wonderfull article (and I don't care if it comes from encyclopedia X) just builds a silly missrepresentation. It says:
This is silly, silly, silly. Eliminativism negates the existence of "mental states" in the sense that they consider the term to be too simple and superficial and that the reality behind it it's probably much more complex. They acknowledge the phenomena but reject the description. Got it?
A "number by itself" does not exist under materialism.
And the concept of number never was universal, btw; the concept of zero is very recent.
There is a tribe in Africa which can't count after number six. After six, all they have is "a lot".
Not all mathematics agree over how to operate with "infinities".
Some persons reject the validity of numbers and only accept the concept of "sets". Etc, etc...
The concept of numbers is just a very useful information travelling from mind to mind...
You tell me, you are the one who reject near all thinking of the 20th century.
I hope you will leave the rational towlie here at least...
Stimpson J. Cat
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Ian,
You give up so easily, Ian. This conversation is over.
Dr. Stupid
You give up so easily, Ian. This conversation is over.
Dr. Stupid
Interesting Ian
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Peskanov said:
Don't be such a complete t*thead. Which is more likely to provide a correct definition of philosophical terms? Encyclopedias of philosophy, or some stupid a*seholes on the James Randi board such as you and Stimp. I think the answer is rather obvious.
It isn't biased idiot.
You can't compare because the article I referenced scarcely said anything about eliminitivism at all. People would have to be literally insane to subscribe to elimintivism. There's a simple refutation - "I think therefore I am".
How is that a misrepresentation? That is exactly what eliminitivists hold.
NO NO NO NO NO!!
No, they deny that anyone actually has mental states. The article you reference states:
{quote}
Once we have a sufficiently sophisticated neuroscience, we may be able to simply say that there are no mental states.
{/quote}
My own "The Oxford Companion to Philosophy" states:
{quote}
Extreme materialist doctrine advocating the elimination of everyday psychological concepts in favour of neuroscientific ones.
The doctrine is sometimes cast in the claim that folk psychology is false. This seems incredible: if it were correct, then (belief being a state of folk psychology) it could not be true that anyone believed it.
{/quote}
So no-one has ever believed anything about anything
Again this following article states:
{quote}
Eliminative materialism (or eliminativism) is the radical claim that our ordinary, common-sense understanding of the mind is deeply wrong and that some or all of the mental states posited by common-sense do not actually exist.
{/quote}
And also
{quote}
. . . it is the view that certain common-sense mental states, such as beliefs and desires, do not exist
{/quote}
The article does however mention a confusion about what eliminitivism actually means. It states:
{quote}
The first scenario proposes that certain mental concepts will turn out to be empty, with mental state terms referring to nothing that actually exists. Historical analogs for this way of understanding eliminativism are cases where we (now) say it turned out there are no such things, such as demons and crystal spheres. The second scenario suggests that the conceptual framework provided by neurosciences (or some other physical account) can or should come to replace the common-sense framework we now use. Unlike the first scenario, the second allows that mental state terms may actually designate something real -- it's just that what they designate turn out to be brain states, which will be more accurately described using the terminology of the relevant sciences. One possible model for this way of thinking about eliminativism might be the discontinuance of talk about germs in favor of more precise scientific terminology of infectious agents. Given these two different conceptions, early eliminativists would sometimes offer two different characterizations of their view: (a) There are no mental states, just brain states and, (b) There really are mental states, but they are just brain states (and we will come to view them that way).
{/quote}
I do not understand, however, how the second definition differs from reductive materialism. I was thinking that on reading it, and lo and behold, it mentioned that very fact in the next paragraph! So it seems to me that eliminitivism generally refers to the first definition.
Anyway, the article states:
{quote}
one helpful article by William Lycan and George Pappas (1972) -- entitled, appropriately enough, "What Is Eliminative Materialism?" -- convincingly argued that you can't have it both ways. You can either claim that common sense mental notions do not pick out anything real -- in which case you are a true eliminative materialist; or you can claim that mental notions can be, in some way, reduced to neurological (or perhaps computational) states of the brain -- in which case you are really just a good-old fashioned materialist/reductionist.
{/quote}
Precisely!
Yes that's right. Materialists have to reject the existence of the abstract concept of a number. More generally mathematics is something which is invented rather than discovered. How many mathematicians agree with this? About 1% of them?? LOL
What??? How the f*ck does all this sh!t establish numbers are information?? You've just rejected their existence, so how the f*ck can they possibly be information??
Paul C. Anagnostopoulos
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This is a typical confusion caused by the absolutism of philosophical concepts. Let's see the entire paragraph from the paper that Peskanov cited:
I don't think anyone is going to say that there is no such thing as love or hate. If they do, then they are simply rejecting words that are summaries of complex functions. It's like saying that computers don't compute, but instead [fill in complete description of computers here]. Notice that the author says that mental state is dumped in the ontological trash can.
~~ Paul
Do you read this as suggesting that we might decide there is no such thing as love and hate? I don't. I take it to mean that the informal descriptions of love and hate used in the neurophysiological arena will turn out to be virtually useless, supplanted by the description of the brain functions corresponding to those emotions. We wiill be able to say that there are "no mental states" because they are of no or limited scientific use.
I don't think anyone is going to say that there is no such thing as love or hate. If they do, then they are simply rejecting words that are summaries of complex functions. It's like saying that computers don't compute, but instead [fill in complete description of computers here]. Notice that the author says that mental state is dumped in the ontological trash can.
~~ Paul